Objective: To investigate the expression of plasma miR-92 a and its target gene BCL2 L11 in esopha-geal cancer（EC） and its clinical significance. Methods: Quantitative real-time PCR was used to determine the ex-pression levels of plasma miR-92 a and its target gene BCL2 L11 in different clinical stages of EC. In vitro transfec-tion experiments were used to study the effects of overexpressing and inhibiting miR-92 a on the expression of its tar-get gene BCL2 L11. Meanwhile

the correlation between plasma miR-92 a expression and the clinicopathologicalstage of EC was analyzed in patients with EC and healthy controls. Results: Compared with healthy subjects

pa-tients with EC had significantly higher expression of plasma miR-92 a and significantly lower expression of plasmaBCL2 L11（both P < 0.05）. The expression of both miR-92 a and BCL2 L11 was correlated with the clinical stage ofEC; the later the clinical stages of EC

the higher the expression level of plasma miR-92 a and the lower the expres-sion level of plasma BCL2 L11（P < 0.05）. In vitro transfection experiments showed that compared with the controlcells

NCI-H716 cells had significantly increased expression of miR-92 a and significantly reduced expression ofBCL2 L11 after transfection with miR-92 a mimic（both P < 0.05）

as well as significantly reduced expression ofmiR-92 a and significantly increased expression of BCL2 L11 after transfection with miR-92 a inhibitor（both P <0.05）. Plasma miR-92 a could negatively regulate the expression of its target gene BCL2 L11 directly

thus down-reg-ulating plasma BCL2 L11（P < 0.05）. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of miR-92 a for EC diagnosis was 0.860

with a sensitivity of 82.2% and a specificity of 85.7%. Conclusion: The expression of plasmamiR-92 a in patients with EC is significantly higher than that in normal people. Plasma miR-92 a testing may be help-ful in the diagnosis

treatment

and prognostic evaluation of EC.